


These Scars That Show

by AcaigaWrites



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: (at least as adults), F/M, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 13:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21137213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcaigaWrites/pseuds/AcaigaWrites
Summary: On a mission gone wrong, Roy barely escapes an assassination attempt.





	These Scars That Show

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing for FMA despite being in the fandom for years! Hope you all enjoy this short li'l piece. Allow me my self-indulgent sappiness :) Reviews make me smile <3

She knows this sensation with more familiarity than any other.

The jarring impact, the wet slickness of her blood, the white-hot searing pain. This time, not one bullet, but three. None of them aimed for her; all of them aimed for him in a crazed assassination attempt. Not the first, surely not the last. His life will forever be at stake, and so it will forever be her job to protect him until the day she dies.

Her decision to throw herself in harm's way had been impulsive, reckless, the exact sort of flaws she so hypocritically criticises in him. Forever telling him to think things through, to calculate actions before taking them. Through the fog of her mind she can practically hear the Colonel's chastising hollers.

This doesn't feel so chastising, not this time. Riza's blood is thundering in her ears, and if it weren't for the heat of the three bullet wounds, she might've thought she's underwater. She's dimly aware of his voice, even if just barely, but she fixates on it, holds tight to it, uses it to ground her as her world starts spinning out of control.

Doesn't he know that she'd do all this and more for him?

His hands are on her, fussing and panicking and trembling against the parts of her left unmarred by the spray of bullets. Her lips are moving, her throat on fire, straining to make her voice heard. Willing her arm to move, a small part of her brain leaps in relief when she feels the Colonel grasp at her hand. Through the disorientation of blood loss and pain, she sees his face. The black hair, the dark eyes wide with panic.

The tears in those obsidian eyes.

"Lieutenant," he's calling, commanding even as she watches him breaking. "Lieu- Riza, stay with me."

Blood. So much blood. "Burn me," she croaks, and the voice does not feel like her own. "Colonel, please. You've got... to."

He did it to himself several years ago, the time when he had been impaled by a Homunculus. In spite of his own agony he had cauterised the wound, nearly losing consciousness in the process. Riza's mind, clouded and hazy though it is, flickers to the day she had asked him to do the unspeakable, the unimaginable.

_Deface my back. _

_Please, Roy. _

_Free me from my father's burden._

And here she is, about to do it again. "Do this... for me, Roy," she whimpers, and her voice is thickening and the effort it takes to speak is so very draining. "Please."

The darkness swarms.

* * *

When she comes to, she's lying in his arms.

It's the first thing she notices - the distinct smell of open-flame smoke, his warmth, the hand resting on her thigh, scarred by the transmutation circle he'd carved into his own flesh all those years ago. She blinks, a little slowly, and as her hearing comes back into focus, she takes note of the heart-monitor's omnipresent rhythm. The slightly fuzzy, light feeling in her head feels a whole lot like the side-effects of morphine; there's an IV tube in her right hand, which she finds resting atop the Colonel's on her thigh.

Riza briefly wonders how many strings he had to pull in order for the hospital to let him in this private hospital room, let alone the bed itself.

"Sir," she murmurs, shifting and hissing sharply as pain races through her torso.

For a moment, she wonders if he went through with her request to be burned or not. Then he's opening his eyes and all thoughts of cauterising are banished from her mind. His eyes - those soulful, expressive eyes - focus, coming to rest on her face.

"How are you feeling?" He asks, voice thick with sleep, his free hand coming to lay at her cheek and jaw. His thumb glides over her skin, warm and rough and anchoring as always.

"Truthfully, Sir? I've been better," she quips lightly, but beneath the humour there is serious concern - not for herself, but for him. "Did you do it in the end?"

The Colonel's face, looking softly down at her, darkens; his gaze turns cold. She knows that anger isn't directed at her. Never at her. Only at the people who would have done such a thing. "I had no choice. You don't... remember?"

"No. No, I don't," she replies, thinking hard. Nothing comes to mind. "How long was I out for?"

"Thirty hours or so. I've been here most of the time." The solemn look on the Colonel's face lifts away somewhat, a hint of humour in his voice. "Havoc's taking over a little at work."

"He'll be having a field day," Riza says, and the tiniest of laughs sends stabbing pain through her side and a grimace forms. "Was I still awake? For the... you know."

"For a little of it," he says, and she feels a pang of sympathy at the pain that flickers across his face. "You passed out."

"I'm sorry, Colonel. I didn't mean to-"

"No, it's okay. You were right. It was either that, or you dying. I couldn't bear it, you know that. If you go, I go."

"Colonel," Riza scolds, forcing a little strength into her voice. "You can't afford to think like that. You have to become Fuhrer. This country needs you. It needs you to lead."

"And what about me?" The Colonel's voice has lowered, and there's a trembling in him. She can feel it through his hand, through the chest she is half-leaning against.

She avoids his gaze.

"Lieutenant." His fingers are at her chin, tilting it up to look at him. "I mean it. The war is over. The nation is at peace, if just for now. There'll come a time where I'll be Fuhrer, but I can't - _I won't_ \- do any of it without you."

Riza tries not to aggravate the bullet and burn wound at her right side. The Colonel's jaw is set in an affirmation of his steadfastness - or rather, stubbornness. She rarely sees this look on his face, but that just makes it feel all the more special; the daring look, the cold stare that screams_ try to take her, try, I dare you._

"I'll try not to go then," she teases, and watches as his face relaxes. She reaches up with her own hand in a bold move, running her fingers through his fringe. It seems instinctive, the way he leans into her palm as it comes to rest on his own cheek. The way his facial muscles relax takes ten years from his appearance; there's a tranquillity to it, an old-world kindness that makes her fall in love with him all over again.

He turns his face in her hand, his lips pressing her palm in a gentle kiss. "You'd better not. Amestris needs a First Lady to its Fuhrer."

Riza's heart skips a juddering beat, and her eyes widen as they lock gazes with his. The Colonel's face is serious, but there's an underlying sense of apprehension. Her hand hasn't moved, tingling from the sensation of his lips, and now she is acutely aware of the hand on her thigh where his fingers are tracing idle circles.

She isn't oblivious to the nature of their relationship. Tip-toeing around one another during the years of his apprenticeship - a lonesome and isolated teenage girl, an eager-to-please young man desperate to prove his worth in the eyes of the world; seventeen to his twenty. Later, she followed him into the jaws of hell itself. Committed atrocities and faced the guilt by his side; her hawk's eyes to his flame alchemy.

_The First Lady to his Fuhrer._

"Co- Roy," she breathes. "Roy, are you-"

"Proposing?" He lets out a short, almost self-deprecating laugh. "Wishful thinking on my part, I guess." He's looking away, his cheeks aflame.

Riza's hand turns his face back to look directly at her. Her thumb traces his lower lip, and that certainly has his attention. "No, it's not. It's not, Roy."

"You mean - you'd want to?"

"Is that so hard to believe?" She smiles softly. Her eyes are stinging a little. "We've been together long enough, haven't we?"

He laughs at her echo of his question from years past. This time his laugh is brighter, less melancholy. "I suppose we have."

"Then promise me something."

"Anything."

"You'll forgive yourself one day. Promise me that."

It's hypocrisy that she can taste on her tongue, bitter as it is, but it's something that must be said; something that can be said for the both of them.

His lips touch gently against her own, and years of self-restraint come crashing down around them. It's a slight pressure, so full of warmth and adoration that it makes her heart feel as if it will implode, but she knows that if it wasn't for her wounds, he'd be crushing her to him as though his life depended on it. Just like he had the first time.

For now, this is enough. Enough to feel him beside her, feel the warmth of his body and beat of his heart, the taste of his lips and his hands in her hair.

A promise. Just like their first kiss, a vow to return from war, a promise that says _I'll come back, I swear, I'll come back to you._

"I promise. For you, I'll try."


End file.
